MAP39: Final Judgement (Doom 64)

MAP39: Final Judgement is the thirty-ninth map in the 2020 re-release of Doom 64, and the sixth and final map of its new The Lost Levels episode. It was designed by Samuel Villarreal (Kaiser) and uses the music track "Dark Echo".

Essentials
This is the final and fittingly also the hardest map in the Lost Levels, but you start off with a megasphere in front of you as well as every single weapon, including your first Unmaker, so you'll be well equipped to deal with the various enemies. Step into the teleporter and you will see an invulnerability sphere alongside a massive supply of ammo. Pick up all the ammo right away, but you might want to save the invulnerability for later. Press the switch to begin.

As you press the switch, many doors will open around you, and you will be surrounded by shotgunners and nightmare imps, and it's important to kill them quickly before too many projectiles from enemies outside overwhelm you. Once you kill them, your initial starting area should be relatively safe, although it is quite exposed from gunfire coming in any direction. At this point you realize that you are in fact in a central temple surrounded by a large outdoors section, and roaming outside are all sorts of heavy demons such as arachnotrons, mancubi, pain elementals and most notably, a cyberdemon to the northwest, who you may not want to wake up right away. The main objective of this map is to locate the three Demon key artifacts, which are required to unlock the gate leading to the final boss. There are essentially two strategies you can employ to achieve this goal.

The first is to largely stay within the confines of the central temple, and use your large ammo supply to fire at enemies from a distance or when they get closer to the temple. Your priority in this case should be the pain elementals, as they can enter the temple itself and quickly swarm you with deadly lost souls. Another priority is the arachnotrons patrolling outside, as they are the closest. Once you've killed enough enemies you should have sufficient room to maneuver and kill the cyberdemon and the rest of the enemies without too much trouble.

Another strategy is to run around the field and try to cause as much infighting as possible between the various monsters, which is a high risk, high reward approach in that it'll allow you to conserve a lot of ammo, but it can be difficult to juggle the many projectiles coming your way if you choose to do so. In this approach, your priority also should be the pain elementals to prevent them from flooding the entire arena with lost souls, but after that your main target should be the various shotgunners roaming around, as their hitscan attacks can prove problematic on top of already dodging the various projectiles. The cyberdemon in this case may be assaulted head-on or may be utilized to generate as much infighting as possible. The invulnerability sphere is particularly useful if you choose this approach.

Whichever approach you take, the three artifacts are located in different places on the map. The orange key is located in the southeast, up a staircase behind a large group of nightmare imps. Picking it up will spawn another cyberdemon immediately outside, but with the powered up Unmaker and many of the enemies dead, this shouldn't pose too much of an issue. The purple key is located to the northeast, behind the door to the left and protected by another pack of nightmare imps. Once again picking this up will cause a cyberdemon to spawn outside, but be careful because due to the exposed terrace this cyberdemon can get an early shot at you right after picking the key. Dispatch him and proceed to the cyan key, which is accessed by taking a teleporter to the south which will lead you to a building full of mancubi in the southwest. Kill them and proceed to the key in the terrace ahead, once again causing a cyberdemon and also pain elementals to spawn. Use the fully powered up Unmaker to vanquish them, then proceed to the gate to the north.

Make sure you pick up as much ammunition as you deem necessary before proceeding to the final fight, and if you saved up on any powerups now is also the time to grab them. Utilize the three colored switches to lower the bars, then press the final switch to awaken the Sister Resurrector - essentially the same as the mother demon boss fought in the main campaign. The boss will quickly teleport to the other side of the map, and may get a few shots on you if it catches you unaware, but otherwise, with the fully powered Unmaker and full health and armor via powerups, you should be able to vanquish the beast rapidly. Congratulations on completing the Lost Levels of Doom 64!

Other points of interest
There are many powerups scattered all across the map, so exploration is worthwhile even in areas that do not contain any of the demon keys. In particular, there are four powerups around the central temple, which may be reached from within the temple itself if the mancubus sentry on each platform they're standing on is killed, which will open up a door allowing them to be picked up.

Secrets
There are no official secrets on this map.

Things
This level contains the following numbers of things per skill level:

Inspiration and development
The opening area of the map is a tribute to, the final level of the Sony PlayStation version of Doom. The arena layout is similar to that of from the original Doom 64 campaign.

Trivia

 * It is not possible to obtain the achievement for finding all three Demon Keys on this level, as it is specifically excluded by map slot.
 * The name of this level is alluded to by the "Final Judge" player title for Doom Eternal, which is unlocked through the Classic Doom 64 Marine master collection skin.